(AFX) - Former Vice President Al Gore will take his campaign against global warming to Wal-Mart Stores Inc. next week, speaking at Wal-Mart headquarters to executives seeking to make the world's largest retailer more environmentally friendly, a company spokesman said Friday.
Gore will talk to a quarterly conference of Wal-Mart managers working on ways to implement Chief Executive Lee Scott's plans to make the retailer a leader in cutting emissions, energy use and solid waste and selling more environmentally friendly products.
Gore will speak about global warming, the subject of his recent documentary film, 'An Inconvenient Truth,' Wal-Mart spokesman Dan Fogleman said.
The daylong meeting Wednesday at Wal-Mart's Home Office in Bentonville, Ark., is a quarterly gathering of 14 individual groups it calls sustainability networks, which include Wal-Mart managers and outside experts.
Each network works on specific areas, such as logistics or food, to put into practice a broad environmental initiative launched by Scott last October.
In recent months, Wal-Mart has taken steps including doubling the number of organic food items in its stores, reducing fuel consumption by its fleet of 7,000 trucks and installing energy-saving light bulbs in stores.
Wal-Mart is taking the environmental offensive at a time when it is under attack from organized labor and other groups for its business practices, including employee pay and health benefits.
Copyright 2006 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.